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Michael Jackson · S1 E1
Steel Town
The city of smoke, steel, and the boy who would change music
Gary, Indiana, 1964. In the corner of a cramped two-bedroom house, six-year-old Michael Jackson watches his brothers rehearse and silently mouths every harmony.
I Want You Back, Jackson 5 (1969), official music video. Michael is eleven years old. Watch his face: he is not performing, he is already living inside the music.
I Want You Back, Jackson 5 (1969)
Key of A-flat major, tempo around 138 BPM. Produced by The Corporation, Berry Gordy's in-house team. That descending piano riff in the intro was written to frame a child's voice, not compete with it. When Michael ad-libs 'oh baby give me one more chance,' every syllable bends with the authority of a soul veteran twice his age.
The Steel City
Gary, Indiana: built on smoke and ambition. US Steel opens its plant here in 1906, and by 1960, 178,000 people live in one of the most productive and most racially segregated cities in America. Joseph Walter Jackson works the overnight shift at Inland Steel and plays rhythm guitar in a local R&B group called The Falcons. He is not a gentle man, but his relentless rehearsal discipline will turn five of his sons into the tightest live act any Motown scout has ever seen.
2300 Jackson Street, Gary, Indiana
A two-bedroom house where eleven people lived: Joe, Katherine, and nine children. Today a national historic landmark and a near-ruin, slowly losing its fight against abandonment.
TAP TO REVEAL: Michael was not the original lead singer of the Jackson 5
Who's Lovin' You, Jackson 5
The B-side to 'I Want You Back' and the most jaw-dropping proof of what Michael could already do. Smokey Robinson wrote this as a heartbreak ballad for grown men. Michael sings it like someone who has actually lost something. He is eleven.
What was Joe Jackson's day job before managing the Jackson 5?
Next episode: what Joe Jackson was actually doing behind closed doors during those rehearsals. And why Katherine is the only person Michael ever pointed to when asked about love.
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